South-South investments are an interesting phenomenon. Here’s an article that claims that the “largest foreign direct investment after the earthquake” in Haiti is coming from Vietnam.
Vietnam's largest mobile network operator, Viettel has signed a deal to upgrade Haiti's fixed line network in the country's largest foreign direct investment after the earthquake. Under a public-private partnership structured by World Bank's IFC, Viettel will initially invest US$59 million, and an additional US$40 million over four years, to upgrade services offered by fixed line operator Télécommunications d'Haiti (Teleco), creating a new company in which Viettel will hold a 60 percent stake and Banque de la République d'Haiti (BRH), Teleco and their affiliates will control the remaining 40 percent.
If you do a Google search on Viettel and Haiti, the articles seem a bit old, so it would be interesting to know if this is working out. It wasn’t clear to me who owns Viettel.
It's owned by the Vietnamese military, see :http://bit.ly/aGa1O1
Posted by: Carl-Henri | May 02, 2010 at 08:54 PM
Thanks, Carl-Henri. Seems it will be a quasi-governmental body, headed by the Minister of Defense. What an odd structure.
Posted by: Doug | May 03, 2010 at 05:16 AM